Revering God in Nature: Transcendentialist Outdoor Adventure

Following the teachings of Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau (but also through the writings/example of John Burroughs, John Muir, Theodore Roosevelt and occasionally others), we are a group of nature-loving outdoor recreationalist theists who find spiritual renewal and growth by time spent in the wild.

We believe that ecology, climate, seasonal weather, wildlife, and water and their interwoven systems and sciences reveal and promote reverence to the Creator. We believe that personal religious experience is possible through outdoor exposure since all things naturally lead us to God.

“In the woods,” Emerson wrote in his magnum opus NATURE, “we return to reason and faith. There I feel that nothing can befall me in life – no disgrace, no calamity … which nature cannot repair.” He continued, “Standing on the bare ground — my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space — all mean egoism vanishes. … The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me; I am part and particle of God.”

We seek to implement the goals of Transcendentialism, the philosophical religion of Emerson and Thoreau that exalted nature, individualism, self-reliance, and a life devoted to intellectualism, solitude, thought, and leisure. As an interdenominational group, we consciously leave the formalism of religious dogma and doctrine to other other institutions. Our version of church is rather one of private spirituality and individual renewal infused by nature itself.

"On every side there is something to soothe and refresh this sense," wrote Thoreau in A WEEK ON THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, "Look up at the tree-tops and see how finely Nature finishes off her work there. See how the pines spire without end higher and higher, and make a graceful fringe to the earth. And who shall count the finer cobwebs that soar and float away from their utmost tops, and the myriad insects that dodge between them. Leaves are of more various forms than the alphabets of all languages put together: of the oaks alone there are hardly two alike, and each expresses its own character."

“I opened my eyes and let what would pass through them into my soul,” Emerson wrote in his 1834 journal, “The pines glittered with their innumerable green needles in the light and seemed to challenge me to read their riddle. The drab oak leaves of the last year turned their little somersaults and lay still again. And the wind bustled high overhead in the forest top.” Reason, he says, can penetrate the inner workings of nature to reveal core truths about the self and the world. When we see an inner principle with clarity and focus, Emerson says we experience “a casting moment.”

As a group we will assemble and gather to partake in outdoor adventure "casting moments" -- largely kayaking or hiking -- to fill our senses with nature and let it speak to us. Some outings will include readings, presentations, or discussions on the works of Transcendentalist authors, but largely most of our activities will leave the insights and religious experience entirely to the individual to absorb privately from nature itself.

“The morning wind forever blows,” Thoreau wrote, “the poem of creation is uninterrupted; but few are the ears that hear it.”